FBI: Violent fugitive may be headed to Mexico

SAN DIEGO—A convicted sex offender who escaped from Montana police during a sexual assault investigation was seen in the San Francisco Bay Area and might be headed to Mexico, the FBI said.

The agency asked for the public's help in locating Kevin Anthony Briggs, 28, and offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.

Investigators announced Thursday he was seen last week in San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland and might currently be in Southern California.

Briggs walked out of the Bozeman, Mont., police station on Feb. 1 during an early shift change. He was left shackled and alone in an unlocked interview room by officers who had been questioning him after his former girlfriend reported he tried to rape her, choked her and later threatened her with a knife.

Court records indicate he got a ride from Bozeman to Missoula, Mont., where he was seen on Feb. 2.

The driver told federal investigators that Briggs said he planned to travel to Seattle and then south to Mexico, staying in homeless shelters along the way.

Briggs reportedly said he planned to change his appearance by growing facial hair and dying the hair on his head black. He also said he planned to take a ship to Russia, which has no extradition treaty with the U.S.

Gallatin County prosecutors have charged Briggs with attempted sexual intercourse without consent and assaulting his former girlfriend at her apartment, as well as assaulting a police officer and escape. He also faces a federal charge of illegal flight to avoid prosecution.

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Briggs is a felon and required to register as a sex offender after a conviction for raping and kidnapping his former girlfriend in Helena, Mont., in 2003. He was 17 and she was 14.

After the rape conviction, Briggs was assigned to intensive supervision in Billings.

In August 2004, his grandmother reported Briggs left her house in the middle of the night and hadn't returned. He was arrested in October 2005 in Humboldt County, Calif.